In supermarkets and grocery stores space for the mounting of bag dispensers is usually at a premium. It is desirable to use as much of the space available as possible for the display of produce or the handling of other groceries. However, certain facilities must be provided to the store's customers and checkout personnel for efficient produce sales and merchandise handling. One such facility is the provision of produce bags that may be conveniently used by the customers to collect the produce that they wish to purchase. Another facility is a checkout counter that has a bag dispensing rack mounted into a vertical counter surface, thereby providing unencumbered horizontal counter space for the handling of the customer's merchandise. Ideally, the store would like to provide simple to use produce and merchandise bag dispensers that are easy to maintain, hold a large quantity of bags of a sufficient size and which do not require frequent servicing.
In addition, grocery stores would like to use space for the bag dispensers not readily usable for the display of produce or other merchandise. It is most convenient to display produce and other items on angled or substantially horizontal shelves. Vertical surfaces, such as the walls of display stands and shelves are good locations to position bag dispensers as such surfaces are not readily usable for other displays. A bag dispenser that can be readily mounted to a vertical surface near a checkout counter will often make use of otherwise unusable space.
A number of dispensing devices and produce bags have been designed to efficiently provide produce bags and merchandise bags to shopping customers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,584,402, issued to Johnson, discloses a bag storage and dispensing rack that may be mounted from a vertical support surface or wall. A base member is supported on a pair of brackets which allows the rack to be displaced in a drawer-like fashion.
U.S. Pat. No. D551,007, issued to Trinko is directed to a bag dispensing rack that is designed to be mounted on a vertical wall or surface so that the rack portion and the bags held within are in a horizontal orientation. The reference is directed to a “rack” while the bag dispenser itself is shown only in dashed lines for illustrative purposes.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,401,971, issued to Edwards et al. illustrates a bag storage and dispensing system with a bag-like structure in another example of the bag stack being held in a horizontal orientation. The storage and dispensing system includes a top flap that is hingedly attached to the front end panel. The top flap includes a slotted aperture. The bags are loaded onto the tongue by aligning the apertures with the tongue and positioning the bags so as to be horizontally presented and retrieved through the aperture. The aperture has an opening in the front wall so as to make it more convenient to remove individual bags.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,098,806, issued to Mills disclose a storage and dispensing unit for merchandise bags that includes a window through which the bag pack may be exposed and another window through which the individual bags may be grasped. The stack of bag tabs is retained within the housing by means of a stiff wire loop that is retained within the housing by being captured between the bottom wall and the housing and a corrugated cardboard insert which is glued or otherwise secured to the bottom wall.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,172,092, issued to Yang et al. is directed to an upright container for storing and dispensing bags. The device is intended to be mounted on a vertical wall with the bags contained therein being visible through an aperture. The device also includes an aperture through which the individual bags may be retrieved.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,777,439, issued to Fried discloses a bag-opening dispenser and method and provides an example of a drawer-like structure that holds a plurality of merchandise bags in a horizontally oriented manner. The bags are retrievable individually by grasping the upper wall of the bag at the cutout portion.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,619,479, issued to Jones et al. discloses a promotional bag dispensing apparatus wherein a bag dispenser may include a panel with identification or promotional type indicia on a front or top exposed surface.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a compact system for dispensing plastic produce bags or merchandise bags that can be mounted conveniently under a counter or shelf. It is a further objective to provide such a system that can store an increased number of relatively large produce or merchandise bags adjacent a check-out counter. It is a still further objective of the invention to provide a dispenser system that provides a visual indication when the bag pack needs to be replaced. Finally, it is an objective to provide such a system that can be easily fabricated, is durable, inexpensive and simple to service.
While some of the objectives of the present invention are disclosed in the prior art, none of the inventions found include all of the requirements identified.